It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving 2006, and I stood at the front of the church with my family and accepted their call as pastor. This was my first pastorate, and honestly none of us knew what to expect, but we all believed it to be God’s will. They gave me the keys to the building, announced that the hall closet would be converted into my office, and asked if I needed anything else. I asked for a copy of the church roll because I wanted to know who I am accountable to now and will be accountable for then, when I stand at that great day.
I walked into an empty church on Monday morning and opened the janitor’s closet that was to be my office. The ladies had already cleaned it out and spruced it up on Sunday evening. They furnished it with an office chair, a lamp, and a small table. Lying on the table was a tattered softback book with beautiful cursive handwriting on the front. It was our church membership roll. It looked ancient and official. As I thumbed through its brown pages, I read my name written in fresh ink. Overwhelmed by the thought of my role in the church’s history, I felt much like young King Solomon: “God, give me wisdom!”
Our little church had about 30 to 35 folks on any given Sunday morning. I anticipated seeing 50 or 60 names on the membership roll. Surely, we had a few elderly shut-ins, maybe a young man in military service, or a couple of kids away at college. These were to be expected, and I wanted to be praying for them while they were away. I also hoped to find a few families who had slipped through the cracks of our fellowship. Having their names listed would serve as an excuse to visit them and introduce myself as the new pastor. Why not try to reach our own before we reach the town?
To my surprise, I found hundreds of members on our rolls. Being ignorant and without any formal training for pastoral ministry, I sought the advice of an older, more experienced pastor. While I bemoaned the state of our church roll, he informed me their church only had 10% of the roll in attendance on a good Sunday. What are the odds that he and I both pastored churches with out-of-control church rolls? I sought another pastor and heard the same statistics. Was this normal? Yes! A better question would be, “Should we accept it as normal?”
My next pastorate had the same stats. I tried to locate each member but found the Baptist church to be better than the FBI’s witness protection program. We had addresses like Route 3 and phone numbers akin to BR549. Now consider every young girl we baptized probably has her husband’s last name at this time. Ex-husbands only multiply the difficulty of determining their identity. That family that got transferred right after they joined — the Joneses, or was it Johnsons? The Wilsons always split services between our church and the Methodist. The church clerk must track name changes, church changes, address changes, and in this day of depravity, gender changes.
“Oh, wait a minute! We ain’t about to change their gender in our official and ancient book! We will remove them from our roll!” I’m glad you introduced the subject of church membership removal. The phrase you are looking for is “church discipline,” and it was a common practice among Baptist churches up until, say, the 1950s or so. There are many old books on the subject. Let’s start with the oldest: Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5. We can also find the subject in Paul’s letters to Timothy, and it is clearly implied in John’s epistles.
This is why most of our church rolls are out of hand — we never take anyone off the roll. We have disregarded the biblical commands and turned a blind eye to those in sin. Yes, I believe it is a sin to persistently forsake the assembling of yourself with other Christians. We all have a standard for maintaining membership; most of you flipped out when I suggested you change the gender of one on your rolls.
Before you ask, I believe in once saved, always saved. We are not talking salvation; we are talking local church membership. Church membership comes with many requirements and privileges. When we fail to expect the requirements but continue to extend the privileges, the watching world fails to see the necessity of church. The purpose of church discipline is to be a deterrent to those who would be tempted to abuse their privileges. This is precisely why Paul told Timothy, “Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear” (1 Tim. 5:20). The goal of church discipline is not removal — it’s reverence.
When we see a Green Beret, we know what he did to earn the odd hat. When an athlete bears an Olympic gold medal, we know their level of skill. Those framed papers in the dentist’s office confirm that person working on your teeth has the proper credentials to do so. When a person professes faith in Christ and follows it up with baptism by immersion, seeking to become a member of the church, we should joyfully add them to our number.
But what if the Green Beret went AWOL and deserted his command? Could he stay a Green Beret? Or if the gold medalist were to test positive for steroids? Could they keep the medal? What about a dentist who repeatedly commits malpractice, harming his patients? Should he be allowed to keep his medical license?
We didn’t end up with bloated church rolls overnight, but that doesn’t mean we need to keep sleeping on it. There are many ways to deal with the situation, and they all start with taking church membership seriously. Simply pray and ask God how to get started. Shoot me an email, and I’ll gladly offer some practical tips.
